Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/486

 end, and they became blended in the Korean consciousness in so far as the antipodes can blend. This also has left its mark upon Korean folk-lore. The longest and most thoroughly elaborated stories show Buddhism and Confucianism hand in hand. The former supplies the dramatic element, and the latter the ethical. The motive is Confucian, the action Buddhistic.

Under the head of shamanistic stories I include all tales which hinge upon shamanism, fetichism, animism and the like. They are the stories which appeal to the basic element in the Korean. Before he was a Confucianist, before he was a Buddhist, he was a nature worshipper. True enough, the monk can scare him with his pictures of a physical hell, but it is as nothing to the fear he has of the spirit which inhabits yonder tree on the hillside. The Confucianist can make the chills run up and down his back by an inventory of the evil passions of the heart ; .but it will not begin to compare with the horror which seizes him when in the middle of the night a weasel overturns a jar in the kitchen, and he feels sure that a tokgabi is at work among his lares and penates. The merchant will not be moved by a homily on the duty of fair dealing with one's fellow-men, but he will spend all day spelling out from the calendar a lucky day on which to carry out a plan for "doing" an unwary customer. Countless are the stories based upon these themes. The spirits of mountain, stream, tree, rock or cave play through Korean fiction as the fairy, goblin or genius does through the pages of the "Arabian Nights."

This portion of our theme is of greater interest than almost any other, for while Buddhism and Confucianism are both importations, and bring with them many ideas originally alien to the Korean mind, we have here the product of the indigenous and basic elements of their character. And yet, even after the lapse of so many centuries, it is difficult to segregate the original Korean and the imported Chinese ingredients in these tales ; but we may be sure that here if anywhere we shall come near to the genuine Korean.